UNITED NATIONS, April 29. /TASS/. The UN Security Council at its first meeting this year on the situation in Ukraine has failed to agree on a draft statement proposed by Russia in support of the Minsk agreements on the settlement of the conflict in the south-east of Ukraine and that urged to conduct an investigation into the tragic events in Odessa of May 2, 2014.

During the meeting, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin read out two key points of the statement, which call for "full implementation" of the Package of Measures for the fulfilment of the Minsk agreements as soon as possible, and also emphasized the need "to speed up the investigation" into the developments in Odessa with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice. The proposal is to consider the text right away in the spirit of transparency, the diplomat said.

However, the delegations of Ukraine, the United States, France and the UK rejected the text of the document as it was proposed. In particular, US Deputy Representative to the UN Michele Sison said that the American side was ready to consider only the text of the statement, which would respond to the situation in Ukraine as a whole, which, she said, was created by actions of the Russian Federation. The UK delegation for its part pointed to the absence in the document of the points it is interested in, including those relating to the convicted in Russia former Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko.

Closing the meeting, President of the UN Security Council, Chinese diplomat Liu Jieyi took note of the draft statement put forward by the Russian Federation and suggested to continue its discussion behind closed doors.